Thank you Brambles, very interesting to read what's actually happening and how it operates. I have a sneaking suspicion that a 'dual currency' legal or not, will start creeping into places it doesn't currently happen.

Not, as you point out, that this will actually improve the situation though.

We have a big 'problem' with immigration - I say 'problem' as I honestly feel in this day and age we should be beyond calling it a problem and looking for ways to stop immigration, and instead be in a place where we can actually help those who need helping. I am saddened that the news is dominated by money ifs and buts, and not people. Now who's dreaming?

That's the funny thing about this dual currency Pig Party. Here in Venezuela it was set in place to improve things, and it did help to equalize the population. Remember Venezuela was a country with a very difficult feudal relationship between labor and the owners of the companies and land. The former generation (35+'rs) still mention fondly that in their house there was a girl adopted from the countryside at 12-13, who'd basicly live in dependency with the family, learning how to read and in payment doing the household. Still now they considered that relationship a charitable thing, not understanding how shocking it is to both Europeans and Americans. They blame the current governement for ending such practises and emancipating the countryside, by giving them houses and equal wages.

It's not a situation you can compare, I believe, to anything that's going on in Europe, at least not without knowing all the aspects of it.

At this point, both keeping and abolishing the dual market would put Venezuela in one of the largest crisises it'll ever have seen. Depending on what the governement does the result will be different, but none of it will be good for those at the bottom, who are struggling tremendously, but as least a little bit less than their ancestors.

A glance at exchange rates led me to notice that, probably as a result of a crisis of two, the value of the Euro against other currencies is obviously affected.

If the value of the euro drops doesn't this put German exports in a better position in the global market? Does that theoretically mean that Germany makes off of the back of another euro country's crisis?